


Trace the Knife Over My Heart Again (Leave a Map of Where You've Been)

by kasuchans



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bloodplay, Knifeplay, M/M, Self-Destruction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2012-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:19:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kasuchans/pseuds/kasuchans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki has heard the trite Midgardian saying before: "We only hurt the ones we love." But he wonders, often, if it is true. He would wager so. And, more importantly, if the reverse is true.</p><p>For he and Thor have the scars to prove so, and have for many, many years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trace the Knife Over My Heart Again (Leave a Map of Where You've Been)

**Author's Note:**

> This is dark. Like, really dark. Like, walking-the-line-between-self-injury-and-knifeplay dark.

Loki knows well what Thor's brethren think of their entanglement. Both on Asgard and here, on Midgard, it was only spoken of in hushed whispers and furtive glances. The prince of the blinding glow of the sun and the prince of the shadow of the moon. The god of thunder and the god of chaos. They don't approve, but that has never stopped the two before. Loki needs Thor with him, beside him, against him, around him, and Thor needs Loki to always push and pull away.

Loki hasn't known what "healthy" means for a very long time.

 

***

 

When Loki is ten and Thor is twelve, he finds his first knife. Until now, Loki has sparred with his hands like Thor, but defensively, buying himself time until he can cast the spell needed to bind their ankles or make the ground crumble beneath them. But he finds a shard of a mirror in the gardens, and when he turns it over in his hands, it catches the side of his forefinger and he bleeds. Thor finds him watching the blood drip down his hand, mirror clasped in a dripping fist at his side.

Thor gives him a set of daggers when he recovers, and teaches him how to use them. Where to hold for a stab or a parry, how to cut delicately or, as Thor prefers, how to rip someone apart. And most importantly, how to throw them so they hit their mark true.

Later that evening, Thor finds Loki standing in front of his mirror, examining himself from all angles.

"It hurts, brother," he whines.

Thor asks, "Where?" and runs the tip of his sparring knife over it, danger dancing behind every movement. But the touch is gentle, with every ounce of Thor's affection behind it, and the sharp tip scrapes white lines into Loki's already snow-pale skin. When he gets into the bath Thor draws for him before leaving, they redden under the heat, pulling the pain outward until he feels boneless and, miraculously, at peace.

 

***

 

Thor storms into Loki's room, eyes like cut glass in a face darkened with anger.

"Brother, what have you done to Lady Sif's hair?" He waves a lock of it in his face.

Loki smiles, trying very, very hard not to laugh. "She was always complaining about how it was used against her in battle. I was only trying to help her," he says, "out of the goodness of my heart." Thor's face is unchanged. "Dear brother, anger is, how should I say, _unbecoming_ on you. Do calm down."

Thor growls, but when Loki reaches out and strokes his forearm, he slowly, slowly releases his hold on Sif's hair. Loki's arm traces up, past the crook of Thor's elbow and the slant of his shoulder, until his hand rests at Thor's neck and he toys with a single strand of hair with his pinkie finger.

Loki would say Thor purrs, he would, but he knows that Thor does not take kindly to such comparisons. So instead he summons a knife to his hand, the one Thor had given him all those years ago, and cuts a single hair off of Thor's neck. "Brother, trust me. As you always have."

Thor pushes forward, locking their mouths together, and doesn't speak of Sif's hair again. In return, Loki carves but the lightest of strokes over the back of Thor's neck, and bares his own in return.

 

***

 

Loki knows, now, that what he has with Thor goes beyond strange, beyond unnatural. He knows not to remove his shirt in public; Thor can pass a new scar here and there as a war-wound, won against some realms-known monster and soothed by a battle-lusty maiden, but Loki cannot. He lies with others only under the cloak of darkness, and scarcely gives them time for their fingers to stray before pinning their wrists to the bedposts with a twitch of his fingers.

But Loki knows the truth, knows that Thor comes time and again to his room, where Loki waits with a kiss, a knife, and a well-guarded heart. They do not murmur endearments to each other, but Loki can feel the strength of Thor's love behind every line carved into his skin, and he pushes the metal in just that much farther, propelled by a feeling he cannot say.

 

***

 

When Thor falls to Midgard, Loki searches for him, but the stripping of his powers makes him all but invisible, even to Loki's scries. When he finds him, in some small desert town, Loki can feel the itch burning as if he has a map of the stars across his torso, and Thor is a supernova. He takes out the smallest knife Thor gave him, the one meant for delicate operations, almost like art, and maps out a small star in his blood across the spot on his chest that does not seem to calm. By the time he sends the Destroyer, he is near-mottled with scars. But neither his appearance nor the thickening of his skin keep him from reaching for that shard of the mirror, the one he's kept all this time, when Thor presses a soft kiss—the kind Loki his never earned—to that Jane Foster's curled fingers.

He can't help but think that his fingers would freeze Thor's lips if he were to try, stuck against Loki's hand in a mockery of deference. Loki doesn't know if the image troubles him or pleases him, but they make his fingers tingle as if ghosted by a gentle touch. He mirrors the touch with a dagger, weaving delicate webs of deep blood-red over his fingertips.  

 

***

 

The Tesseract, Loki learns far too late, is strong, but not as he had expected. From the stories, he had though it would simply overwhelm him, push its way past all his defenses as his brother did. But neither is true. Instead, it sidles past his guard and reaches, as would a well-informed thief, for the most valuable treasure of them all: Thor. When Loki sees the blue licking around his memories of his brother, the few sunspots in a starlit sky, he bows his head in submission, because he will let Yggdrasil itself be torn from its roots before he will let a mere memory of Thor be tainted.

When the Captain and the Iron Man secure him on the plane, he closes his eyes and listens for that sickly-sweet promise the Tesseract whispers to him, the one that says Thor will be kept safe. So when the Captain asks him, "Scared of a little lighting?" he pauses, because these people may be on Thor's side, but they are Midgardians who cannot grasp what it is between them.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows," he says, because if Thor is here, than Loki will fight him, and the Tesseract will not be able to stop the madness between them, despite its whispers.

Thor tries to worm his way into Loki's head, he does, up on that cliff, but the Tesseract has thrown up walls of icy blue around anything resembling reason. Loki can only speak with his unguarded heart, forever open around Thor, about Thor, with Thor, and hope his eyes say what his mouth will not.

 

***

 

"Sentiment," Loki says, because he honestly cannot say anything more. The blue curls around him, and he could fight it, he is stronger, but he can feel somewhere in the depths of his cold heart that if he does, Thor will truly be in danger. So he stops it there, because nothing Loki can do to Thor will ever match up to what someone could do without _sentiment_.

He slips the blade between the sits of Thor's armor and pushes him back; his eyes are glittering but Thor will know better, Loki hopes, than to see tears when his lung is quite possibly pierced. Still, the tracery over Loki's chest, history of years spent together, burns like the cold of Jötunheimr did upon his flesh that hateful day. 

He does pay Thor a visit in the healing ward, though, while he sleeps, and if he magics the cut, and many others, closed, well, the cameras certainly don't see it.

 

***

 

Loki knows Thor loves Jane. He can see it, in the way his eyes soften when he speaks of her. He knows, too, that Thor wants her, that he misses her when they cannot lie together. The Silvertongue, he knows far too well what that exact shade of darkened eyes means. He understands it, too. She is quick of wit, as is Loki, and warm of heart, as Loki is not. She curves into the gaps Thor leaves behind, so no, Loki is not at all surprised.

But love is not desire, and want is not need, and Jane will never be Loki. Not for Thor. She is more than another of his battleground lusted lays, but she cannot ever be what Thor needs, not wants. Loki knows this, because he is.

He sees it in the way Thor's eyes harden when he speaks of him, in the way his mouth tightens and his knuckles on his hammer whiten imperceptibly. But Loki can see it, because he knows Thor better than Thor knows himself, he's willing to bet. 

He would say the same of Thor, but he doubts anyone knows Loki better than he knows himself. Especially Thor.

And as many times as they clash in battle, staff and spellcraft against Mjölnir and muscle, Loki knows that Thor needs him. Needs him like a shadow, always there but for the few precious moments deserving of the complete spotlight. Loki needs him, too, needs Thor's heart of heat and passion to put a low burn against his own of cold and emptiness. Thor is almost, _almost_ enough to fill the void, and Loki is almost, _almost_ enough to turn Thor's fire to ice, but it's never enough, and they keep coming back for more.

So when Loki slips into the mansion one night, weaving a cloak of dark around his shoulders, he finds Thor asleep, hair strewn on the pillow like a wanton maiden's. When Thor licks his way into Loki's mouth, he merely hisses his assent, biting with the barest scrape of his teeth against Thor's tongue. When Loki slips a hand around Thor's length, Thor grunts against his lips, but has long since learned to stop whispering his endearments; Loki needs no such assurances of affection, because he has never doubted. 

And when Thor rocks inside him with a gasp, murmuring, "Brother," Loki clenches, spits out "Never call me that," and comes.

 

***

 

The day comes, as all days do, when they come to an ultimate answer. Loki knows their arrangement can never last. Not when Thor insists on staying on Midgard with his precious friends, and his precious woman. Not when Loki refuses to listen to Thor's ragged entreaties. No, they are two sides of the same coin, warm gold and cool silver, head and heart. So when Loki magics the two of them away, to an icy cave he'd secreted on Jötunheim, Thor muffles a sigh and stops struggling.

There are two daggers against the wall, one of glimmering ice and one of stark brass. Loki takes the brass one up in his hand, handing Thor the frozen one. He grimaces at the cold, but Loki does the same; the brass is not kind to his hand, turned Jötun-blue by the cold.

"Now, _Brother_ ," he says, hissing out that damned epithet, "take my hand."

He turns his palm-up, and Thor does the same, intermingling their fingers. Together, they pass the blades over the pads, letting the blood weave in beautiful, painful, love-strewn rivulets. 

Thor lifts Loki's hand to his lips and presses a kiss to his wounds. "Brother," he mutters. "Loki."


End file.
